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Hi!  Happy Advent!  Team Columbia was recently featured in Catholic NYC, the city-wide Catholic newspaper.  To see the article, click here.

Birthdays, Booths, and Bible study

Today is my teammate, Justin's, birthday.  In celebration, my team woke up at 5:30am and walked around Columbia in the dark while we prayed all 20 decades of the rosary (as we do every Wednesday).  Then we ate breakfast.  He had a cupcake.

This is what happened when I tried to take a picture of him and his cupcake.

Justin is a great teammate and brother.  Sometimes he gets a little too excited about being the "annoying little brother", and so I have to remind him that I already have one of those (sorry, Daniel!).  Anyway, I am very thankful for Justin and what he brings to our team.

In other news, I recently went to Washington, D.C. to represent FOCUS at a long-term service fair at Catholic University.

Keegan, a Regional Director, and Dan, a missionary at George Washington University, talking with a CUA student

It was a great trip because I got to talk about my awesome job, AND I got to see some family.

My wonderful cousin, Lauren, and my loving Uncle Mark

And did I mention Frannie Boyle?

Frannie Boyle. 'Nuf said.

Then I came back and made autumn wreaths out of ribbon and styrofoam with my Bible Study girls.  Ashley decided hers looked more like a lion's mane than a wreath.

Isn't she cute?

Thank you for your prayers!  Please pray for my new Bible Study that I'm starting with some upperclassmen women.  To Him be the glory!

Hello, again

Oops!  I forgot about this thing!

Actually, it's just been rather busy.  Lots of this:

And lots of this:

pretty

Hiking with the CFRs and some other young adults

Tough life, I know.

This is probably my favorite:

Jesus

Also, this last night:

 

Michelle, Ninoska (a missionary at George Mason), and Julia

We made caramel apples.  Yummy.  And messy.

Not to mention donor events, concerts with students (my friend Emily is on tour with Jars of Clay!), a new graduate student study, bike riding in Central Park, rosary vigils, Sunday brunches, blah blah blah.

I hope you are doing well, too!

Curtis and fleas

Last Tuesday Curtis Martin (our Founder and President) was in NYC for a brief development visit, so Father Dan invited him to come give a talk at Columbia.  And of course, he agreed.

Me, Justin, Curtis, and Leah

It was a great chance to share more with our students about why and how FOCUS works.  He shared our model with the students and asked them what they wanted to see happen at Columbia.  He challenged them to see the campus through the eyes of Christ and talked about what it really means to know God.  It was great!  It got the students thinking.

Yesterday, I got to spend some quality time with two students as we explored the HUGE two story parking-garage-turned-flea-market just a couple blocks from my apartment.  There was some pretty neat and random stuff, but it seems one can never escape New York prices!

Jen and Julia exploring the first flea market we found.

That's all for now, folks.  Happy Monday!

Bible Study!

New Yorkers love to try to shock you.  The thing is, everyone has been shocked so much, nothing is shocking anymore.  What would be considered appalling, weird, wrong, backwards, inappropriate, or stupid in other places is just considered normal here.  In fact, if you give anything a second glance, then you are labeled as being judgmental.  Well, call me judgmental, but yesterday, on the Subway (aka Sway),I stood next to a man who looked like he had just had his head cut open with an axe.  Blood was running down his face and had stained his shirt, and he was just chatting with some lady who looked as if she had just been clobbered with a bat.  Of course, I realized they must have been actors coming home from a show, but you never know in this city.  Why didn't they clean up before they went home?  Were they trying to shock me and all the others whom they encountered?  Maybe.  I don't know.  I don't really care, either.  It was just weird, and I'm sticking to that.

Anyway, I had my first Bible Study on Wednesday!  I've never lead a Bible Study before.  I'm leading a group of freshman girls through a new FOCUS study called, The Crux.  The study presents the basic Gospel message in 5 short weeks, exploring how Scripture reveals to us the person of Jesus Christ and discussing why He is relevant to us today, with the purpose of inviting the students to make Christ at the center of their lives at the end.  We'll then continue on with another study of choice.  I'm pretty dern excited.  The girls seemed to click!  It was great!

On Thursday Team Columbia got to take a day of reflection with Father Gabriel of the CFRs.  We went upstate a couple hours (read: trees, grass, hills, lakes, peace and QUIET!!!!!!!!) to attend a Mass of Thanksgiving for a Sister that Father knows who recently made her final vows with the Monastic Family of Bethlehem.  She grew up in the Maronite rite, so the Maronite Bishop of the Eastern United States came and celebrated Mass.  It was so beautiful!  Most of the chants were in Aramaic or Arabic.  Then they gave us cake and wine.  Yes, please!

And then yesterday, I got to spend an hour with my sweet cousin, Lauren, in Central Park.  (Why her parents named her Lauren, I still don't know.  Talk about confusing when we have the same last name...)

That's all for now.  Ready for another week!

Ready, Set, Go

This weekend the Columbia Catholic Ministry undergraduate board went on a retreat and invited us along.  I was all for it, since it was an opportunity to get out of the city and a great chance to spend some quality time with students and get to know them.  The retreat took place at the residence of Father Benedict Groeschel, well-known writer, speaker, and founder of the awesome religious order, the CFRs.  We got to spend some time with him at meals, which was super cool.  It was also nice to fall asleep to the sound of trickling water, rather than screeching tires and car horns.

While on the retreat, Leah (our Team Director) had the chance to share with the students a little bit about Salvation History and our role within that story.  In short, that Christ died for all, restoring our relationship to God the Father which had been broken by the sin of our first parents, and that He left us a mission here on earth, namely: Go and make disciples of all nations.  Since not everyone has come to believe in Him, then that mission is not yet complete and we still have a job to do.  She then explained in more depth how FOCUS answers Christ's call to evangelization, why we do it on the college campus, and how they could be a part of it if they wanted to.  Our students are awesome, and the response was positive.  We are so excited as missionaries to get to teach them how to be missionaries themselves!

The steps

Today our team did outreach on the steps.  The steps is the area in the center of campus where students hang out or do homework.  We handed out ice pops, which we've done before, but this time we did it simply to hand out ice pops and nothing more.  It was a hot day, you see.  And who doesn't like a free ice pop on a hot day?  Many people did not come up to us because they assumed we wanted something from them, which is true for most things people are giving away for 'free', especially in New York City.  We just chatted with people and, if they asked, we told them we were Catholic missionaries.  Some people were skeptical, but many were appreciative.  We even made it onto the campus blog, Bwog, which keeps students updated on what's happening and where they can get free food.  Here's the link, with our picture.  The girl on the left is one of our students, Jen.  Unfortunately, some people took us to be "ingenuous" when they found out we were missionaries, but I guess that's to be expected.  I had a lot of fun and met some really cool people.

All in all, a great couple of days.  Busy, but that's the way I like it!

Blessed

I am sitting now at my kitchen table, in a dark red and tan colored room, listening to the sounds that float through my window - cars honking, tires screeching, motorcyclists showing off.  But louder still is the sound of music.  Someone is playing a saxophone from a random rooftop nearby.  He plays a beautiful, jazzy melody and reminds me of my home.  It's a quiet, confident song he plays.  He plays every night.  Sometimes I am not as content to listen, such as when I am in bed and have to wake up early the next morning.  But right now, it's peaceful.  It's beautiful.  It's relaxing.

We have nearly completed our first week of outreach at Columbia, and it has been a period of incredible sanctification.  In this week alone I have learned approximately seventeen new ways to swallow my pride, and I have seen the devil in action.  I have begun to realize the magnitude of the task God has laid before Team Columbia, the necessity of prayer, the weaknesses of my heart.  I have been stretched and stomped on and blessed and blessed and blessed.

I am learning more and more the importance of faith and how easily it can be broken and shattered, and how necessary it is to prevail.

It's been a tough week.  It has hurt.  Praise God.  Thank you, Jesus, for loving me in this way.

Hurricane Irene

Bad weather follows me around.  Katrina senior year of high school, the Great May Floods of Nashville senior year of college, and now... and earthquake AND a hurricane.  Irene hit the city early Sunday morning.  It was crazy!  Not the hurricane itself, but the hype all around it.  Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated the city, the Subway shut down Saturday at noon until Monday morning (that is unheard of), the streets were completely empty, and nothing was open!  It felt like post-Katrina New Orleans for a day, just with much less water and not as hot.  All the craziness caused Columbia to change their orientation week schedule, which led to the cancellation of our first official event on campus - the activities fair.  So instead of standing by a table with 14 other religious organizations yesterday like we were originally supposed to, our team instead mingled around with the freshman first-years new students (seriously, this place is more particular than Vandy!) as they unloaded their cars and got acquainted with the campus.  It was fun, but definitely a challenge for me.  Today we go back to campus for round two.  Pray for us and all the students we will meet!

NYC

Well, I'm here!  I've been in NYC since Monday, and already I think I'm going to like it.  A lot.  At least for now.  It's been great fun getting to hang out a lot with my team and spending time with our very knowledgeable chaplain, Father Dan.  This guy knows the ins and outs of all things New York.  He showed us around Columbia yesterday!  Our apartment is not to small and quite nice (at least compared to the standards I had set in my head beforehand), but nothing compared to the boys' five story palace with a rooftop patio.  The view from our living room window looks something like this:

 

Not too shabby, eh?  Today the team made a list of all the places we want to see and things we want to do in NYC sometime this year, and tomorrow we are going to begin to tackle it.  Hopefully someone will bring a camera, because I seem to have misplaced mine (don't tell my mom).  If so, I will try to post some pics!

Oh, I was kidding about the view.  We do, however, have a great view of the Empire State Building, which is quite nice at night.